FINGERPICTURES

It was awkward. I was working with my camera in one hand, while placing the page under the proper light with the other. That’s when I saw my own fingers entering the frame of the camera’s view finder. They looked like pink fat aliens, fiddling around the page I was trying to shoot. I stopped, and started looking at my hand. If I watched it for long enough, it didn’t seem mine anymore. It was like a flashy spider, an octopus who lost three tentacles to adapt to terrestrial life, a cybernetic machine I now imagined crammed with silver wiring, bearings, and watchmaker’s screws under a thin layer of synthetic skin. I am easily distracted by my own assignment, so I started playing with my hand, placing it over the pictures in a sudden attempt to give images an extra dimension. What you see is the result of a few days’ work between Milan and Amsterdam. Some pictures are taken by Vogue Italy, others from an inflight magazine called Madame (merci beaucoup, Air France). I used a Leica M9 and a Lumix G1, selecting a medium resolution to give pictures a grainy effect. I shooted in daylight as usual, adjusting colors and adding minor retouches on Photoshop. “Like a Cadillac” (the opening photo is from an original by Miles Aldridge) is the first of the series. The Fingerpictures – that’s the far too obvious name I came up with – are another experiment in visual communication, and part of the “Photography, Photographed” project. I would like to express my gratitude to Vogue, Air France and their photographers, and a special thanks to the Brandpowder Team for their unvaluable support.